Col. Alexis Pfeiffer Retired Army officer

Graveside services for retired Army Lt. Col. Alexis V. Pfeiffer, who taught at the Anne Arundel Community College, will be held at 3 p.m. today at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Colonel Pfeiffer, who was 74 and a Severna Park resident, died of cancer Oct. 15 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

He retired from the Army in 1966 as an intelligence officer, having enlisted at the outset of World War II. He had been decorated for his wartime service in the Pacific and European theaters and later in the Korean War.

In 1963, he served as Washington translator on the presidential hot line to Moscow.

After his retirement, he worked several years as a civilian in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He taught a course, "Russian Studies and Language," at the community college for the past two years and another on current events at the Arnold Senior Center.

Born in Yalta in the Crimea, he fled the Communist Revolution with his family, first to Greece and then to New York City.

He was a graduate of New York University, where he also received a master's degree in parasitology.

Before entering the Army, he was an assistant professor at the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy and the author of several published research papers.

He was a member of the American Defense Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Congress of American-Russians and the Reserve Officers Association.

He is survived by his wife of 34 years, the former Peggy A. Onley; three sons, Walter and Dale Pfeiffer, both of Baltimore, and Peter Pfeiffer of Hartford, Conn.; and two grandchildren.

The family suggested that memorial contributions could be made to the American Cancer Society or the MIA-POW programs of the American Defense Institute.